


midzone

by dramaticgasp



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crash Landing, Headcanon, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 20:58:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17169281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaticgasp/pseuds/dramaticgasp
Summary: Lance crashes because he doesn't see it coming.





	midzone

He crashes because he doesn't see it coming.

 

The laser distance measurer in Lance's helmet zeroes and the impact sends him flying across the cabin. 

 

You can brace yourself, but then everything _booms_ , and it's like you hadn't. The water surface breaks, and you don't get to take a breath.

 

His back hits the roof plate and then he falls back down, not quite catching himself. No breaths taken. He sees his reflection in the metal surface under his body, nose to nose, mouth open, unnaturally still, contrasting the afternoise in his head, contrasting the rattle of his bones. He could count them, now. He has never memorised how many there are.

 

His side is starting to spark up. He levers himself onto his elbows. 

 

You don't prepare for this: seeing your hands still clenched, one on nothing and another one around a broken-loose hand control. To move the unmovable, it's utter synchronisation of muscle filaments, Lance knows, the maximum output force of a human body. It's a component of survival stories. He guesses he's a survival story now.

 

''Lance?''

 

And for this: seeing the control stick out of your skin under the ribs, your rigid hand holding it in place. Silver and brown separated with a red line.

 

He inhales, slowly, with caution, and feels dizzy.

 

''Lance? Come in. Lance, say something.''

 

He's learnt first aid twice. You shouldn't remove an object penetrating tissue, but he doesn't think it's deep. He pulls it out.

 

''Yeah,'' he says, and detaches a glove. He covers the wound with a hand. It's warm. It's disgusting. He feels his heartbeat in his skull and his body shiver. ''Keith?''

 

''What happened?''

 

''I crashed,'' Lance says.

 

Through the front shield, he can see the blueness of water, and he knows he's sinking. They're sinking. _Blue?_ He stands up and watches the cabin getting darker. His shadow is diminishing and it feels like standing onstage during lights-out in slow motion. Dust is floating in front of the glass window. It's so silent now. _Blue? Come on, girl_.

 

''— _report_ , Lance. What's happening?''

 

''Wait,'' he says. 

 

_Blue, did you just leave me? I'd never leave you like this._

 

The cabin lights are dead and he's losing sight with the surface distancing. His pulse is rising. He's sinking on his feet, still, like something caught in time. Look at his stance, and you'll see soldier pride; because fear is invisible, but sticky, and it's all over Lance's everything, hanging wet off his ribs. It's gross. Lance hates it.

 

_Blue?_

 

''Lance, I swear to god.''

 

But, open the records, Lance's learnt the word for every hazardous situation; it's step-by-step work. He was trained for this. And his suit is waterproof.

 

''Keith? I crashed. Blue and I are underwater and she's unresponsive. I'm gonna swim above the surface.''

 

''How deep are you?''

 

''I don't know. Deep. Not too deep.'' He'll have to open the hatch manually. He reattaches the glove. _It's not your fault, Blue._ Can she feel that it's lie-shaped in Lance's head? ''I won a 50 m breaststroke contest, first grade.''

 

Something like that, simple, shouldn't be hand-given as something that will be left undone; Lance meant to offer it as an unspoken promise. But the way it came out, the leak behind the words, it was like the first thought of breaking the promise.

 

''Come in when you're up.''

 

''Copy. Wico.'' When he moves the hand from his side, a red drop splatters on his shoe. He's got nothing to wipe it with. He's got his hands on the handle—

 

''Fuck,'' Lance breathes. Can't he think? He can't fucking think.

 

_Blue. Blue. Blue._

 

''What? Lance? What do you see?''

 

''It opens outwards.'' He should've realised. He's— can't think straight. ''Blue could open it but I'm— She's left me, she's not here.''

 

He hears shuffling and then silence, and he waits for the shuffling to return, but it doesn't, and inside of his head is quiet and he's sinking. His mind skids to a stop, slowly. ''Keith?''

 

It's like a heavy vacuum, the ocean. It absorbs you. You're gone, and nobody can hear it.

 

''The central floor plate can be used as a hatch, too,'' Keith says, and Lance exhales. He needs to stop stretching everything. Thin glass breaks on touch. ''But once you loosen it, the water will rush in.''

 

''Yeah, okay.'' Maybe Keith is dumb enough not to notice the wavering of his voice.

 

''Brace yourself,'' Keith warns, and Lance tries to mute a laugh. It twists itself out of his throat as something sharp, and Lance is glad Keith can't see him because Keith doesn't look away first.

 

He takes a breath.

 

The water sweeps him off his feet and enwraps his sense of gravity. His back hits a wall and it's a reflex, to inhale, the body going into its survival mode. He inhales and realises — his clothes are wet. 

 

He can't fucking think. The puncture; of course. Of course.

 

The influx of water keeps on rotating him against his swimming. He inhales again and tastes salt. When he tries to spit it out, more water pours into his mouth. Of course; water doesn't ally against water.

 

The beeping of his helmet traverses his head, he can imagine it, like a red laser beam. His eyelashes stick together and his eyes burn and he can't blink it away. _Spider-webbed_ , he thinks. Fucking stupid.

 

He was trained for this. Time runs slower underwater; its a heavy vacuum, a curvature in space-time. He starts counting midway, out of nothing, which is barely a reference point at all, but it's what he knows to do, that's the thing about step-by-step work; you need to take a step to reach the end.

 

Five seconds; this side should be the floor, where is the opening? It's dark. His vision is shower-wall blurred. Rubbing the visor is stupid, but he does it anyway, his body. It's a reflex.

 

Fifteen seconds: he knows which way the surface is. And from now on, he waterfalls, in reverse. Twenty seconds? Thirty? His lungs are getting tight and he feels an inwards pull. It's hard to count when you're imploding. 

 

He breaks the surface and throws the helmet off, and the air, the sweet nothing, fills his lungs and gushes into his veins, and it's like sugar-coating his body, from his core to his toe tips, and he can _breathe_. He rubs the water off his eyes, and it stings, but there's that: an ocean plane, dark, boundless, with head-high, saw-edged waves. There's that: a chant of the waves and windy murmur, a constant that is a background sound for comfort, until it's not. Until the pause-restart button is out of your hands.

 

And the sky — it's a mass, rolling and conquering land, and Lance has not been invited.

 

He pulls the helmet back on.

 

''Keith?'' he asks. ''Kei—''

 

''Lance. Are you up? Are you— what's going on? What do you see?''

 

''Water,'' Lance answers and spits some off his lips. He chuckles, then coughs. ''It's cold.''

 

''Do you see land?''

 

It's like a biblical flood film. Seastrophy. Seastopia. The sea, the backstabber. Cold is supposed to be numbing, why is his skin aflame? And his jaw is so tense it hurts. 

 

''It's cold,'' he says again. Did Keith not hear him?

 

''Lance, what do you see? Do you see land?''

 

His helmet beeps for confirmation to forward its readings on the environment to Keith's lion. Lance blinks and turns so that the wind is hitting only one shoulder before he feels for the button.

 

''No,'' he says, ''I see water.'' A fucking déja vu. Has he not just said that? He has just said that.

 

''Okay.'' Lance can imagine him nodding. It's self-conviction, Lance knows, he has always been attuned to people. And he played the flute for, like, two years. ''Okay. Is there anything you can to hold onto? Like a floatation device. Or like— is there? Lance?''

 

''I'm— no?'' Lance looks down and the ocean is black. With oxygen-drunkenness waning, the wound burn is rising. The water isn't red-colored, maybe it's not that bad, maybe— ''Where's Shiro? He needs to—''

 

''Tell me what happened.'' 

 

Right; Shiro is not within commshot. And Keith—

 

Lance sleeps on the top of a bunker because his sister is afraid of heights, and he sees that the reason why Keith sleeps on the top of a bunker is the vantage point; it's choosing a defense tower with arrowslits.

 

What happened: Lance can terrifically recall the feeling of zero gravity and cut-wires brain and loose electricity. He can't catch his breath.

 

''We got into a magnetic field, but it was— set up. It's like, it just appeared. Like, was activated. By— someone.''

 

''A planet's field?''

 

''It just appeared,'' Lance says, and feels lame. If only it weren't Keith. Anybody else. He feels like he's losing, at _something_ , and he doesn't like it. Fucking Keith.

 

''How could it affect Blue? And the Galra would have ambushed if they had expected our arrival.'' Lance imagines Keith's low-laid eyebrows, bottom lip between his teeth.

 

''Magic? Not Galra.'' 

 

He's shuddering convulsively. It's bad. He's treading water. But it's both ways, isn't it? Newton's second law. The water is treading him, too, that's why he finds it hard to breathe.

 

''I need to get my armour off,'' Lance says.

 

''Don't. It's an insulation layer.''

 

Lance knows, he has learnt first aid twice. Twice, because he has learnt to operate two vehicle types. And he hates hospitals.

 

''But then it'd— be hotter, no?''

 

A beat. Two. Three.

 

''I'll kill you.''

 

''Keith, seriously. It's weighing me down.''

 

His wound is pricking, he feels it when he moves his torso. When he touches it and brings his hand up, his fingers are only water-wet.

 

''Keep your helmet on.''

 

His dexterity is not great. His ring finger is white. Like death. Raynaud's phenomenon; inadequate blood flow. It used to be amusing, kinda. The armour sinks. He wouldn't expect it to float, but whatever.

 

Lance is half-swallowed by the water, half-chewed from the crash, spit and ready to be kiss-fed as food, and he doesn't know what to do. Fucking Keith.

 

''What do I do?'' Lance asks. Tries not to feel like he's losing.

 

''Think. I'll get there, okay? Red has your location. Twenty minutes. Thirty? Think.''

 

Lance shakes his head. He knows Keith can't see him.

 

He realises what it is, why the ocean isn't relaxing, why it doesn't feel like an opportunity spring, why it's heavy and uncaring, cotton that suffocates. It's the waves. He can't see them crashing against the shore; they are never satiated. That's why he feels like prey.

 

This was not a routine mission, but no interactions were planned. Lance thought it would be boring. Both him and Keith were offended it was assigned to them. Most of the time, he ignores how easily offended both of them are. Or something. Or whatever.

 

The castle spotted a cluster of stars with curiously few radio waves. Unnaturally so. And they had to check for man-made obstructions. Something-made. It was nothing, but Coran insisted. Lance thought it would be boring.

 

But he was never meant to be a cargo pilot. Never meant to do routine work.

 

''Consider me an— extravehicular mobility unit,'' Lance says, and hates that the phrase _stage fright_ settles in his mind. ''Atmospheric composition is similar to the Earth's, as you can— read. And the ocean's oxygen levels are close to the Earth's. Pretty similar, except for these – well, don't know what this is. It is habitable, from a third-party perspective.''

 

 _Just not Lance-habitable._ But Keith has told him that he was _too caught up in his own head._ Shiro will see who's focused now. The castle hasn't picked up any signals from this planet, but nor would they from humans a thousand years ago.

 

'' _Third-party perspective_. How,'' Keith says,'' You're _right there._ ''

 

''It must be tidally locked. It's part of a red— dwarf system, just one of the planets. Blue. In the habitable—''

 

''You entered the system.'' 

 

It's like people decide they will keep seeing one side of Lance, pick the color of the palette most convenient for them. Lance is starting to despise the color.

 

''Yeah, I entered it fine,'' Lance says. ''I hate you all.''

 

''Why did you land on that planet? Why didn't you go straight—''

 

''I _crashed_.'' 

 

''—into its magnetic field. We weren't even supposed to enter any. Why didn't you just edge between them and read radio wa—''

 

''Yeah, well,'' Lance snaps, but it's too breathy. ''I wanted to close in on the habitable zone. There could be highly evolved life. We don't have much info on this galaxy. And the Galra might.''

 

This planet was blue. Pretty. Blue like the Earth. Familiarity bias; to prefer the familiar over the novel. A human in space is still human.

 

But now that they're face to face, Lance's eyes to their reflections — it's not pretty. He can't see his feet. He wonders what the scan range of temperature mapping is in his helmet, because he can't see his feet and there could be aquatic lifeforms.

 

''You should've just followed the instructions.''

 

It's different when Keith disobeys instructions; he disobeys them and then comes back a hero. And Lance, well. Dust is raised and then it falls back down and Lance is the one given a dust mop. 

 

He swallows.

 

''It must be raining to the North. And the weather is crazy to the South. Which means there's— land, probably, right? If this qualifies as— strongly temperature-dependent weathering.''

 

He hears an inhale. Submerging might feel warmer than being exposed to the wind, but then sound would be distorted. He could tell Kei—

 

''East-West mountains to the North, maybe. Could they be blocked by the rain? How far from you is it raining?''

 

''I doubt I'll— be hiking mountains,'' Lance says and hears an aggravated puff of air. ''And air currents are South-North.'' Unless the light is a trick of clouds. Unless he has it all wrong. Or he's in a shadow of a huge mountain. Fucking hiking, he hates hiking, how is Pidge always right? ''North-South? Fuck.'' And textbook pictures are not proportional, no wonder he has never understood currents.

 

''How is this helping?'' 

 

''Gathering— information? Duh? Let's be smart. Let's get something— out of this.'' He drawls out all the wrong vowels. _Dualistic_. His body, one, Lance, two. That much about self-reliance.

 

It's a lot of work when only half of you has to do everything.

 

''How the fuck is this helping?'' 

 

Lance is getting out of his head. Maybe he sees what Keith likes about it. It's like floating. You're very real because you're facts and you can always do a double-check.

 

''Despite the fact you're scared–''

 

''I'm _what_ ,'' Keith says, and how can Shiro think Keith is the cold-headed one? Who the fuck is Shiro to decide—

 

'' _Lance_.'' Exasperated. ''Would you stop trying to be Russia all the time! You're so stupid, what the fuck does this matter? You're _so stupid_. You always have to throw yourself on every fucking bigger space rock we detect.''

 

Silence. 

 

Lance licks his lips. He hates the salt. Did Keith lick his lips? Although — Keith isn't Lance. He knows what to do with his silences. 

 

''Jealous of my heroic reputation, baby?''

 

'' _No._ It's not about me.''

 

Lance remembers Shiro saying, _people put their trust in you_ , and — is that what Keith is thinking? You know when you say something and it doesn't land? Nothing lands with Keith.

 

''Look, Keith, it's— I get that you don't get it. It's o— it's okay, though. It's not about me, buddy.''

 

''But it is about you,'' Keith says, his voice thin. It's forced out of his throat, but here it is, having rivuleted to the other side, like water. Lance doesn't know what to do with it. Like water.

 

''I get that you don't understand,'' Lance repeats, because he's dumb, and wants the world. He has to interrupt the silence, insert his presence, exist.

 

He's here, bleeding heat like a hand warmer, like a magician in a world without physics, and he's too alive to be quiet.

 

Low rumbling of water and high whistling of wind. Lance's breaths; panting that Keith is listening to — it's intimate. And, like, Lance is the sharpshooter.

 

''Science,'' Lance breaks the silence — because he has to, ''got me _wet._ ''

 

''Stop joking!''

 

 _People die because they're scared, Keith_. Right, but what Keith does is get out of his head. Become otherly. Become fact-reliable.

 

''What does water do to blood flow?'' Lance asks.

 

''Redirects blood to the core.'' A moment passes and Lance imagines comprehension rising like a rogue wave. ''Apply pressure?'' Keith says, a question. ''Are you bleeding? Are you serious?''

 

''Yes? I am— applying pressure. What do you think I would be doing, Keith?''

 

''Bleeding,'' Keith snaps.

 

Shiro, Allura. Keith. For them, Lance doesn't adhere to instructions. He is not reliable. This fucking planet. Lance doesn't even know its name. _Terminator_. At least they could rename the mission.

 

''How— close are you?'' Lance asks. ''Because, I don't know.'' The cold is devouring him. He feels halfway to the bones. _I'm tired_ , he thinks. He says? Well. They should rename the mission. His footprint.

 

''Don't,'' Keith says, and it's a hiss, forced through his teeth. ''Shiro would be mad.''

 

''I know, Kogane. Keith. Kogane, no pain. Tell him I'm— sorry I'm not like you.''

 

''Shut up. Shut up.''

 

Yeah. Keith is brimful of letters, choking on them until his throat is a needle hole and his cheeks colored red, but he can't arrange them into words. Shiro gold-plated Lance's _dense_ into _different_. Transfiguration; to turn into something beautiful. 

 

Lance can't feel his skin. He can't feel his anything.

 

''I can't believe you'll— occupy my last headspace. Ugh.'' 

 

 _Anything but a polar bear, huh?_ Keith. A boy of action. Lance's thoughts flow out with zero friction, and Keith's voice breaks on the word _affection_ — but after all, they always say that actions speak louder than words. Guess it's true, after all.

 

The ocean will erase him, and he'll be rubber dust. He thought he knew the ocean. _Traitor_ , he thinks.

 

A pause, and then Keith says, ''I'm sorry,'' and Lance says, ''No.''

 

This is scary, because — when Keith feels, he feels with his everything. When you set the edge of his sleeve alight, he inflames whole. He had _prone to intense emotional episodes_ written in his file at Garrison. Lance read it.

 

He knows what Keith would say.

 

''It's fine.''

 

''It's not _fine_!'' Keith rages, and Lance imagines they wince together.

 

The water keeps flooding his taste buds. There was a girl who asked him to taste their yellow planet's spring water. Their gourmandist bottles; he looked tasteful, she said. Pidge cleared her throat then, and Lance tipped back a vase-shaped glass out of spite, even though it was salty, and also because her eyes were black in a way that is like getting sucked into Jumanji. A black hole. You accelerate until you can't brake. He never told her that he let the salt suck water out of his cells for her. It's kinda romantic.

 

He wants Hunk. 

 

They are like that: the first thing said between them was when Hunk spoke up from a corner of a dark hallway Lance was sneaking in, tools Lance couldn't name in his hands and something like a gas turbine in his lap — _careful, ghosts might be watching you_. They are like that: handing each other engines when they need them.

 

And then, Keith is above his head and Lance is blinking, propulsors drying his eyes, and reaching up before he can process it. 

 

Keith grabs his hand and looks around, looking for solutions, for one Lance couldn't find, and Lance thinks, _the degradation_ —

 

And then Keith plops in water, letting go of Lance's hand. Lance couldn't feel it, anyway.

 

Keith's arm is around his neck, a warm puff at Lance's ear. Lance's breaths pool on Keith's arm and he watches Keith's skin chill. Maybe it's not the cold. If somebody said, _you see what you want to see_ , Lance would punch them.

 

Keith tries to ascend and Lance feels arms tightening around his torso. It's a lot of splashing. It's a lighted match in a bathtub. It's futility. Keith grabs Lance's shoulders and then they're face to face.

 

''Where's Blue? Tell me how to fix her.''

 

Fix her? He can't feel her, there's nothing. A boy of flesh, a spark of quintessence, fix a thing this indestructible, a thing this eternal. What a laugh. He used to feel invincible; he wanted an adventure, but also to save the world. And something happened, sometime after the transition from Lance the tree climber to Lance the space explorer. And now Keith is saying _tell me how to fix her_ , like Lance knows anything, like he isn't a match in a bathtub. The lions need their paladins' quintessence. Lance can reset the controls, rearrange the wires. He can't _fix_ her.

 

''I can't fix her,'' Lance says.

 

''What? No, you have to tell me how to fix her and I'll swim down — why are you smiling? Lance, _what_?''

 

Of course he can't fix her. He wanted an adventure, and he did stupid things just to see how Keith would react. He never saved the world.

 

Lance is a boy who walks with his palms turned upward under the rain. Looks like his mama was wrong. Looks like even boys with arms grabbing at life die.

 

Hands grabbing at his hair make him blink but he only gets more  
salt in his eyes. Maybe if he keeps them closed for long enough—

 

he thinks, I deserve better

 

He remembers his sister watching him from the kitchen counter when he returned home after having sneaked out, his back pressed against a wall, tongue out, mimicking a chameleon, and loving that it worked. 

 

She'll be so mad.

 

''—say something! Lance! Do something!''

 

Keith, this fucking— he once asked Lance, _doesn't your mouth hold?_ Lance remembers telling his niece, _you should speak before you talk_. Then why

 

Then why

 

How does a match go with a mismatch? How are they falling in step, instead of further out?

 

It must be— it's

 

The sky's never been the limit for them. Or maybe he was just dumb. Shiro said _you're ready_ , and Lance believed him. 

 

How could he not believe Shiro? It's Shiro. Even now, he'd tell Lance, _it's nothing to be ashamed of_. Lance laughs, sort of, kinda, or maybe it's just a wave pouring down his windpipe.

 

''Shiro? Come in. Pidge? Pidge?''

 

Keith must think he doesn't look away first, but he doesn't know that at Garrison, first year, when Keith was landing with a hoover in the middle of a circle of men, people watching a flying wonder, Lance kept his eyes open even with dust getting in his eyes.

 

''I'll fucking punch you. I'll burn your stupid game—''

 

Hands on his neck. Or not. His nerves aren't working anyway. His skin is

 

He thinks, you're all welcome.

 

He thinks, my birthday is in two weeks.

 

_Traitor_

 

  


  


  


  


  


Water shoots up his nose, and when his eyes open, the salt burns. And then he resurfaces, Keith in his face, Keith's voice reverberating in his skull, Keith's hands shaking his shoulders.

 

''It's a shooting! Lance, think of something! Think of—''

 

Static noise, water in his mouth, in his nose. Re-emergence. He inhales, lungs larger than air.  


 

''Think of something. _Lance._ ''

 

And it's that or being consumed by the ocean. Lance shrugs, slow. Or intends to. He doesn't say, _just go_. He doesn't want the pity.

 

''But you're the sharpshooter,'' Keith says, voice too high, so close to one ear it's like stereo, ''you're the last-moment shot,'' and Lance hates the desperation. This is a prayer, and he knows, because — once, Lance visited a church in Rio Branco with his family and he didn't understand the language, but — intent carries. He starts crying.

 

He's pulled underwater again, deeper this time, he thinks, he knows, and then he doesn't think anymore.

 

 

*

 

 

Warmth is clenched around his stomach and pressed against his back. His mind is opening up, and then it _blooms_ , a soothing stream of energy swirling inside, blue-colored; blue like the sky, blue like peace, blue like the future. _Hey_ , he thinks back.

 

A bandage is poking from the jacket he's wearing, and he thinks at Blue, _cats lick wounds, huh_? And then he sees pale skin and blunt nails.

 

Keith hates cold hands, Lance knows, he put his on Keith's neck once.

 

Lance crawls away.

 

''We're in Blue,'' Keith says.

 

Underwater, Lance can tell. It's dark. 

 

The shooters weren't Galra. They could be working with the Galra.

 

And now he notices he's wearing Keith's jacket. Keith is wearing a T-shirt.

 

''Your lips were, like, blue,'' Keith says.

 

Keith has his back to a wall and now he pulls his legs towards him. He is sitting cross-legged, hands clasped around his ankles and his back wall-straight.

 

''There _was_ a field. Of unknown nature, though. It only formed below Red when I got close enough.'' It's not even an apology. It's an assessment. ''And there _was_ somebody.''

 

There _was_ somebody. Who the fuck does Keith think he is? After all this—

 

—Keith does finger guns then, clumsy and graceless, and Lance's nerves go into overdrive and he says, ''Touch my face.'' 

 

He tries not to turn away from the expression overflowing Keith's face. How it microscopically reshapes to something uncertain.

 

''What?''

 

''Touch my face,'' Lance snaps. _Stage fright_. ''Are you deaf?''

 

Keith reaches out. They swallow in sync. It's just a touch. Very light, a glass-touch. The fear of cuts.

 

Lance shakes his head and laughs, forced and ugly. When he glances up, Keith's eyes are fixed on the spot between Lance's eyes, intense like the depth of something ocean-vast, and Lance knows that expression; it's equation solving. It's not knowing where to start. 

 

Keith — he probably doesn't like riddles but solves them anyway.

 

''Ugh,'' Lance says and pulls the hands off his face by the wrists.

 

Keith's glazed eyes — Lance never knows whether they're unfocused or overly focused and he can't shoot when he can't see his target. This is when you retreat. This is when you look away.

 

''They'll find us,'' Keith says, because he's like that, he changes the topic. ''I increased the output volume,'' he points at their helmets, discarded on the floor. Blue and red. Lance stares at them until the colors blur and overlap and he sees purple.

 

''You're like a drink me poison,'' Keith says. It's the air that escapes when you lift a downturned glass.

 

''Getting there, are we,'' Lance says. It comes out sand-dry. It's disgusting.

 

'' _No_ ,'' Keith says. Growls? These days, his underflowing blood is getting hard to ignore; that's what Coran said, with a record in his hands. That it's not just the eyes. ''I'm— You're— I never know how anything I say will affect you. The, um, shrinking and growth.'' Hands on his thighs, Keith looks like he wants to stand up but realises he doesn't know what he's doing. He hugs his knees, eyes cast down as we says, ''You got to Blue.''

 

 _Blue got to me_ , Lance doesn't say. These days, Lance doesn't give a fuck about genetics. They're all survival stories.

 

Lance thinks of the hand control and feels excitement jabbing his nerves. ''I have super-strength,'' he says. He's tired. Of course Keith wasn't there. He's tired.

 

Keith's fingers flex, barely, or not at all if you don't know what to look for, and fabric tightens around his calves. It's so Keith. Keith, confused; his eyes do something, glass-in-the-sun-like. ''You do,'' he says.

 

Keith wasn't there. Why does Keith have to be so confusing? Lance is tired. _Lance_ is supposed to be the mixed vibe. But at the end, Lance is a triple punctuation kinda guy. Keith is a full stop.

 

The cabin is almost wrapped-in-foil dark. They're sinking. Look at their stance, and you'll see soldiers battle-drained. War-drained. 

 

What you're unaware of after having read the Garrison programme objective and the work plan is the informal part. That when you shoot, your mind bleeds. You know you'll learn about blood loss, but not self loss. The searching for lost puzzle pieces. Holes in souls.

 

It's a skill, to stretch your hope like an elastic band that doesn't break. 

 

Their eyes meet. The look at each other and see soldier pride.

 

  


**Author's Note:**

> well well well if this isnt indulgence
> 
> i will bevimmensely happy if you leave a comment and tell me what you think!
> 
> and i'd love to, like, discuss hypothermia and, like, why a human cant survive defrosting with you


End file.
